Bob Carson

Freelance writing is a great job. You give the illusion of working while not compelled to set alarm clocks or listen to whiny bosses. You can’t really get fired and you don’t have to keep glancing at the door during a three-hour martini lunch. You just wake at the crack of noon and tell your wife you are heading to the track for more research. If you don’t mind your income dropping like Bear Stearns stock and moving into a double wide, it’s a great career move.

Freelancers can pitch stories to any genre of newspaper or magazine. It’s a big world and I have written for many. Editors have shown the bad taste to publish my material about some pretty inane stuff. For example, one national publication saw fit to run my ramble on why a professional baseball team named the Quad City River Bandits decided to change their name to The Swing of Quad City in honor of Bix Bierderdeck, a saxophone player from the roaring twenties who was born in Bettendorf, Iowa. An editor of a lifestyle magazine ran a farce I sent in about drunken people getting tattoos. A travel magazine loved a riff about train travel at three in the morning, another a rollicking travelogue about visiting Jai Alai frontons.

Here is the thing that has me miffed. The editors who accepted this drivel passed on every harness racing idea that I enthusiastically pitched their way. This is getting very annoying. For the most part, editors in the mainstream press appreciate horseracing articles as much as men with bad comb-overs appreciate strong winds.

Autumn Ryan graphic

The story that harness racing is great fun, endlessly fascinating and a wonderful gambling option is not getting told in the mainstream press. Unless the landscape changes dramatically, narratives about the people and horses we love will remain a secret from the masses. Articles in horseracing magazines and outlets like this USTA site, no matter how wonderful, rarely touch the outside world; they are sermons to our dwindling congregation.

I want to preach to the rest of the world; the people who do not know a filly from a fruitfly. It has not been happening. It is time for some guerilla horse journalism.

Here’s the plan:

Newspapers and magazines are having major problems due to the rise of cyberspace and fall of consumers willing to read more than six consecutive words. The printed word is in peril. Paper is becoming passé. The Los Angeles Times is among dozens of depleted newspapers on the auction block.

Let’s buy one. By us, I mean harness racing. Heck, let’s buy a chain of newspapers. They are having fire sales every day.

There you go rolling your eyes again. This is not as far fetched as one might think. The publishing industry is wounded, shrinking and in turmoil, and harness racing has some experience in these areas. For once, we were ahead of the curve. Opportunity may be knocking.

As for money, this is doable. Purchasing a newspaper chain, like all mega transactions, are built on the shifting sands of massive credit debt. Horseracing can borrow as well as the next guy. Plus, newspapers are still profitable, returning investors over 20 percent annually. As for operation — how hard can it be? My local newspaper is 80 percent advertising, 10 percent sports, 8 percent syndication and a report on sewer legislation.

After we own a newspaper chain, we start peppering the paper with harness race stories — big ones, front-page stories, continuing series on racing, and even word scrambles — everything will get a heavy horse racing slant. We will use the newspapers like William Randolph Hearst. If Hearst could start a war just because he wanted something to write about, we could start a harness buzz. The power of the press still has some punch.

Other news outlets would get wind of how we are scandalously using our paper chain to promote our sport; THEY would write stories (mostly unflattering about the abuse of the press). This would give harness racing additional spin-off publicity. I like Mr. Hearst’s attitude when an underling questioned what made a story relevant. Hearst said, “Me and a screaming headline.”

Despite the dry spell and poor forecast for published material, newspapers and magazine’s still have a little juice. Let’s buy a few of these lemon presses and start squeezing out some harness racing seeds.